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The WT has published my letter about housing in the Gap.
There are a couple more letters on the topic on page 50.
'I note that your columnist Alison Phillips is again commenting about the lack of a secondary school on the east side of Trowbridge. I, and I’m sure, other local Wiltshire Councillors, welcome her support for a battle which is now well into its second decade.
To put things into perspective, this is not a new idea. My ’03 newsletter had a whole page dedicated to the topic, my spring ‘04 ‘Paxcroft Update’ said ‘oddly, the council didn’t accept the educational argument that a new school was needed but they begrudgingly admitted that cross-town travel for perhaps a thousand children is a totally ridiculous concept to foist upon us’. My Election Address in ‘05 stated ‘The site for a new school east of Trowbridge must be pursued now’, whilst my spring ‘05 newsletter lambasted the council for its ‘tortoise-like approach’. I could quote more recent newsletters but I think you get my drift.
Until now I have never been able to work out why Wiltshire Council, and its predecessor authority, was so strongly against a new school but, following the answer given to my question at the recent meeting of WC, perhaps we now know; WC has had to publically admit that it owns land in the Gap and, amazingly, the parcel of land is included in the possible new housing allocation. Why agree to a school when WC can give itself permission for housing and see the value of the land increase perhaps ten-fold?
Wiltshire Council obviously has a very serious financial interest in seeing housing forced into the Gap. In my opinion, the actions of how this land passed the ‘first sift’ of the WC strategic planning team needs very careful scrutiny and a public statement made outlining why many, many other sites were rejected but this one wasn’t.'